http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091225/wl_time/08599195003400
Pakistan's Turmoil Endangers
Its Archaeological Treasures
By CHRISTOPHER ALLBRITTON / ISLAMABAD - Fri Dec 25, 4:50 pm ET
In the mountains and valleys of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier
Province, palace ruins and crumbling Buddhist monasteries dot
the hills above war-torn locations such as Mingora, Peshawar and
the Swat Valley. These magnificent
ruins are all that's left of the Gandhara kingdom, which flourished
from the 6th century B.C. to the 11th century A.D. It vanished
under the pressure of war and conquest, re-emerging only in 1848
when relics and ruins were re-discovered by the British archaeologist,
Sir Alexander Cunningham.
Now, Gandhara is in danger of vanishing a second time from the
same old threats. Just as the Afghan Taliban destroyed the 1,500-year-old
statues of the Buddha in Bamiyan, Afghanistan in 2001, militants
in Pakistan have attacked the Buddhist heritage in Pakistan, driving
away foreign research teams and tourists, forcing the closure
of museums and threatening the integrity of valuable digs. "Militants
are the enemies of culture," says Abdul Nasir Khan, curator
of the museum at Taxila, one of the country's premier archaeological
sites and a former capital of the Gandhara civilization. "It
is very clear that if the situation carries on like this, it will
destroy our cultural heritage." (See pictures of Pakistan's
vulnerable North-West Frontier Province.)
The Gandhara kingdom and its art are east and west. Indeed, the
Jehanabad Buddha looks out over a stretch of the
old path. Later, in the 7th century, Swat Valley was the birthplace
of Tantric Buddhism, and Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang described the
valley as home to hundreds of Buddhist sculptures, monasteries
and stupas. Only a fraction has been excavated so far.
Taxila should be a showcase of that civilization. Today a town
about 20 miles northwest of Islamabad, it was a center of Buddhist
learning, a must-visit for travelers like Xuanzang seeking Buddhist
scripture and wisdom. Formerly part of the Persian Empire, Taxila
was one of Alexander's conquests and is today a World Heritage
Site. The museum there, started in 1918, is one of Pakistan's
finest, with more than 4,000 artifacts from the Gandhara civilization.
But no one comes to visit much anymore. Nasir Khan says there
have been warnings of a possible attack on the museum, and some
security procedures have been put in place, but he said they're
insufficient. (See pictures of Pakistan subcultures.)
The anxiety is palpable. In the last five days alone, Taliban
militants have killed more than 100 people in near-daily bombings
across the country in Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Lahore and now Multan.
Foreign archaeological teams
are being told not to come, warnings issued by their own governments
or their institutions because of fear for safety. Local diggers
can't get out to crumbling sites for security reasons as well.
The lack of archaeologists at many sites has led militants and
vandals to close in. Kashmir Smast, about 70 miles northwest of
Islamabad, is a Hindu site, not Buddhist, and thus unusual for
the area. "But there's no preservation, no one to look after
the site," says Dr. Nasim Khan, professor of archaeology
at the University of Peshawar. "The local people are damaging
the site because of illegal diggings." In Swat, the Taliban
have long attempted to destroy the Buddhist heritage of the region.
In October 2007, as militants cemented their hold on the former
tourist area, the Taliban dynamited the face of the Jehanabad
Buddha into oblivion. The 23-foot-high carving of the seated Buddha,
dating from the 7th century, is regarded as the second most important
Gandhara monument after the Taliban-eradicated
Bamiyan Buddhas. (See pictures of the battle against the Taliban.)
Dr. Fazal Dad Kakar, the director general of the Department of
Archaeology and Museums, played down the damage done to the carving
as the work of local villagers, not Taliban. Regardless, it shows
that even without a direct threat from Islamic militants, the
lack of security means important sites are unprotected and ill-preserved
and can fall prey to vandalism and looting.
Robert Knox, who was Keeper of the Department of Asia at the
British Museum until 2006, gave up on coming to Pakistan in 2001
after 9/11. He was working in Bannu agency on the border of Waziristan.
Today's it's an active war
zone. "We were in Bannu for a very, very long time,"
says Knox, who excavated there from the mid-1970s to 2001. "We
scratched the surface. There's still an enormous amount to do
and sites are lost more or less daily. It's almost a free-for-all,
particularly in difficult war-like areas."
Foreign teams bring a lot of money for conservation and excavating,
money the cash-strapped Pakistani government doesn't have to spend
on preserving antiquities when it has a war to fight. The University
of Peshawar's Khan says that there are usually excavations on
the outskirts of Peshawar and Taxila, but even he can't go to
these sites anymore, much less foreigners. To his knowledge, he
said, there are no foreign teams scheduled to come to Pakistan.
"We are not taking the risks to bring them to the sites,"
he says. "We need their help, we need to involve them. But
unfortunately, that's not been happening for the last two years."
Foreign contracts also often include a commitment to help preserve
and develop a site after the initial research is done. Without
that, excavations are being started and then left open when local
funding dries up, Khan says. "We don't have the resources
to protect each and every site in Gandhara," he explains.
"We don't have any resources to make it a model site for
tourism, which would create jobs and bring in money."
Speaking from his home in London, Knox says that it would be
catastrophic to lose Gandhara and other ancient civilizations
that sprung up along the Indus Valley to direct threats from militants
or neglect caused by the security
vacuum. "Journalists can't even go there, quite apart from
people who want to do field archaeology," he says of the
sites near Waziristan and other war-ravaged locations. "I
don't think I shall ever see those places again."